| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: isna speeritually minded, but he has been a good man to me."
It was perhaps the first time since her husband's elevation that she had
forgotten the handle to his name, of which the tender, inconsistent
woman was not a little proud. And when Kirstie looked up at the
speaker's face, she was aware of a change.
"Godsake, what's the maitter wi' ye, mem?" cried the housekeeper,
starting from the rug.
"I do not ken," answered her mistress, shaking her head. "But he is not
speeritually minded, my dear."
"Here, sit down with ye! Godsake, what ails the wife?" cried Kirstie,
and helped and forced her into my lord's own chair by the cheek of the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: But when they approach'd the house of Asan,
Lo! the children saw from high their mother,
And they shouted: "To thy halls return thou!
Eat thy supper with thy darling children!"
Mournfully the wife of Asan heard it,
Tow'rd the Suatian prince then turn'd she, saying:
"Let, I pray, the Suatians and the horses
At the loved ones' door a short time tarry,
That I may give presents to my children."
And before the loved ones' door they tarried,
And she presents gave to her poor children,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: flight and retired in exile to Sidon in Phoenicia, leaving the
Egyptians, split in faction, to choose to themselves a pair of
kings.[39] Thereupon Agesilaus took his decision. If he helped
neither, it meant that neither would pay the service-money due to his
Hellenes, that neither would provide a market, and that, whichever of
the two conquered in the end, Sparta would be equally detested. But if
he threw in his lot with one of them, that one would in all likelihood
in return for the kindness prove a friend. Accordingly he chose
between the two that one who seemed to be the truer partisan of
Hellas, and with him marched against the enemy of Hellas and conquered
him in a battle, crushing him. His rival he helped to establish on the
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: room.
"Pardon me, sir," he said in measured English, and with an
intonation of exquisite politeness; "you have let this letter
fall."
Wyant, recognizing his friend's note of introduction to Doctor
Lombard, took it with a word of thanks, and was about to turn
away when he perceived that the eyes of his fellow diner remained
fixed on him with a gaze of melancholy interrogation.
"Again pardon me," the young man at length ventured, "but are you
by chance the friend of the illustrious Doctor Lombard?"
"No," returned Wyant, with the instinctive Anglo-Saxon distrust
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